Building Campfires

If you’ve been reading the blog for the past few years you’ve likely read about wood burning stoves for camping. High efficiency wood burning stoves have been around for many years but there’s been a renaissance in wood burning stove technology over the past decade or so. This renaissance has its roots in engineering simple technology that can be used to conserve wood fuel in the developing world. Half of the world’s households and 80 percent of rural households in developing countries cook with solid fuels like wood, coal, crop residues and dung....

Fire by friction history was made by ‘World Champion Fire Starter’ Eagle Scout Dudley Winn Smith from Independence, Missouri who held the record for starting a fire using a bow and drill. The 1937 book Games and Recreational Methods for Clubs, Camps and Scouts, C.F. Smith, records his winning method. I have tried this out and it works! “When the starter said ‘Go’ I drew my bow back and forth with long complete strokes....

Any good outdoorsman knows how to make a fire in the rain. Once you’ve mastered the skill of building fires when the weather is dry you’ll want to hone your skills for starting a fire when the weather goes bad. The infographic explains a few strategies for getting a fire going when you have nothing but a match and no fire starters. I always carry fire starters but I won’t use them unless it’s absolutely necessary, I’ll save them for an emergency or when it’s otherwise impossible to light a fire without them....

There are many ways to start a fire, and every experienced camper will have their own favorites, but here’s my list of top ten fire starters: Good strike-anywhere matches are increasingly difficult to find. I stock up on my favorite brand (Redbird from Eddy Match in Ontario) when we are in Canada for our canoe trips. Here’s another brand at Amazon with good reviews if you have trouble finding them elsewhere....

Here’s a simple formula for how to build a campfire, it’s easy to remember. (here’s a video that illustrates the technique) ‘Gather’ and ‘Build’ are the key concepts: GATHER …everything before you strike a match. The sizes and amounts are rules of thumb, don’t over-engineer things. For some reason my Scouts always seem to break the sticks they gather into tiny pieces, keep them close to the sizes specified and you’ll have a better chance of succeeding....

Informative article from Tim MacWelch at Outdoor Life Survival on how to find and use fungi fire starter: If you have birch or black Locust trees growing near you, then you probably have some very flammable species of fungi also growing nearby. A classic fire starting tinder of the northeast is the fungus that grows on Birch trees. The species Fomes fomentarius is also known as horse hoof fungus, tinder fungus, tinder conk, and tinder polypore....

Splitting wood with a retaining chain and bungee cord: This splitting firewood video features a wicked-good looking splitting axe by Fiskars. It looks to me like their X series splitting axes that come in 17″, 23 1/2″, 28″ and 36″ lengths. The geometry of the axe head creates a wedge whose top curves outward sharply – looks very effective. Fiskars splitting axes on Amazon Fiskars 7856 X11 17-Inch Splitting Axe...

Steven C. Karoly is a retired Seabee Cook who blogs at Round the Chuckbox. I eagerly followed a series of eight of Steve’s recent posts on the ‘Code of the Campfire’. They are a combination of practical advice and old fashioned good manners. One look at the idyllic campfire seen pictured above speaks volumes to Steve’s skill and experience as a camp cook. Here’s a quick overview of the code- you can read them all here....

A reader (who wishes to remain anonymous) asks; My son recently joined a Scout troop who, to my horror, burns almost all their trash in the campfire. Most leaders that do this either don’t think it’s a problem, or have just learned to be indifferent. As a cub leader we didn’t let the youth put anything other than paper in the campfire and taught them what Styrofoam or plastic can do to the environment or their bodies when burned at low temperatures....

Illustration by Hap Wilson. Originally appeared in The Keewaydin Way by Brian Back Lake Temagami and environs is one of the great good places to go canoeing. According to the Ottertooth website: The three-walled heritage fireplace has been a Temagami tradition for over a hundred years and many blackened campsite fireplaces have been in use for decades. Daily baking, particularly for bannock, remains an essential part of heritage Temagami. Many of the camps have two bakes at dinner, one for dessert that night, and a second for lunch the next day....

Tom Chiarella at Esquire Magazine has posted an article The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master. Skill # 51 uses many of the the methods and measurements from my video Never Fail Campfire Building. 51. Build a campfire. There are three components: 1. The tinder — bone-dry, snappable twigs, about as long as your hand. You need two complete handfuls. Try birch bark; it burns long and hot. 2. The kindling — thick as your thumb, long as your forearm, breakable with two hands....

The most common cliché about scouting is a toss-up between helping old ladies across the street and rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. Making fire with a bow drill is an obtainable skill for those who are willing to devote themselves to a little study, finding the proper materials and patient practice. Here’s great advice and direction on making a bow drill fire featured on the Wildwood Survival website....

EXCERPT from Fire by Friction Do you think that you can build a fire using a fire by friction set made by yourself? If you answered YES to the this question, you are already 50% done with the building of your fire by friction. It is a fun challenge to any scout and the following tips should make it easier. Before you start, decide which end of the spindle will be the top....

Campfire building can be an elusive skill. Books show us tidy pictures of tepees and log cabins, extol the merits of exotic fire starters and generally make the job unnecessarily complicated. This little film explains how to collect the three things needed to build a fire; tinder, kindling and fuel. Gathering the right kind of material in sufficient quantities assures quick, reliable campfire. Here’s a campfire building infographic that explains the method....

Kneel always when you light a fire – John Oxenham Sit at your camp fires conscious that it gives us more than heat and light. We have passed on the simple skills required to kindle a warming flame for millennia. We are united with the past around this common hearth gazing into the embers, dreaming dreams. Archaeologists study centuries-old fire pits. Evidence of fire remains for tens of thousands of years – use it reverently knowing that the signs it leaves will long outlive us....